Do anyone else's parents do this?

[Pliyo]

Sample:

DM: Oooh, do you know who I bumped into in town the other day? Janet Smith.

Me: Who?

DM: Janet Smith, you remember, who used to go to church with Grandma.

Me: blank stare

DM: proceeds to give me full details of X thing that happened to Janet Smith recently despite the fact I have literally no idea who this person is

Another sample:

Unfamiliar car parks in street

DF: <leaps up like meerkat and rushes to window> who does that belong to then? Never seen that car before?

cue him and DM spending the next hour discussing the owner of the car and who it might belong to

I have a friend, early 50's, who talks about her friends like they are my friends too, using their names to me like I know them when I don't.
The really funny thing is that when she talks about her DH, she doesn't use his name - calls him "my husband/hubby" yet him I actually do know!

Yep!

My DM.

She rings me once a week at the same time every Saturday.

I know sooooo many details about ‘Graham’, my parents neighbour, his health issues, his emigrating daughter, his daughter’s female partner, his lawn…

I have never met Graham.

My DM knows nothing about me or her grandchildren - she never asks.

I’ve just realised that I do this. DD (19) phoned me last night….

Me - ‘I saw Tom Whitelaw in Tesco on Monday”

DD - ‘who?’

Me - ‘Darcey’s brother’

DD - ‘Darcey from Brownies?’

Me - ‘yes, he’s going travelling again’

DD - ‘I don’t think I ever met him, I know she had a brother but I never met him’

Me ‘you must have’

I’m also obsessed with strange cars in our close.

I’m 59 🤣🤣

Conversation with my mum, she’s only 56 bearing in mind 🥹.
‘Ooh, guess who died”
”who”
“you know that woman, with the pushchair, with the kid that goes to dds school”
“you need to be more specific, in case you hadn’t noticed there’s lots of women with pushchairs at the school “
“oh you know, the one with the 3 kids”
me whilst my eyes roll to the back of my head “ again mum, more specific,”
“oh you know the one who’s son sometimes walks with (max ,dds friend)”
” right yes, she died?, I only saw her the other day”
” of course not, no it was her grandad, he sometimes comes into my work”

so because she works in a popular shop in town, I get this very often… it’s exhausting 🤭😩

Also if another character appears in the long story of Janet's life and doings, you have to have the new person's entire life story as well. Rinse and repeat.

I very seldom manage to have a conversation with my dad any more because nobody else can get a word in past the monologue.

😢

Not only do I get Janet Smith's news I get the news of her gardener's son's wife's cleaner's cousin twice removed's budgie's cage's sandpaper flooring. In great detail. "And then she showed me the photographs on her phone!"

I get all that but she didn't tell me that my best friend growing up had died for two years because she heard it second hand and didn't want to say until she'd bumped into their mother and confirmed it. Had she mentioned it to anyone with a computer they could have googled it and I could have contacted the family in a more timely manner than I did.

Bless her, she means well ...

Yes, my DM. The police called in a few doors down, so she’s concluded that they must have been burgled while on holiday “that free newspaper was stuck in their letter box for three days”, it was crying out to the local robbers, obviously!

Yup. And I also get the stories about Janet Smith's son who moved to Australia in 2006 and got married to a Polish girl called is it Katja or Karolina, but she's got her own business selling cake now and they've just had a second baby and the baby is called Marc and isn't that nice. 🤣

I used to get that all the time, I didn't know Mrs Jones up the road, never mind her daughter. I'd still get told anyway.

Think it's when some old peoples world gets smaller, and probably the type of people when younger to gossip/take a big interest in random people.
My parents didn't do it but they kept busy with hobbies and friends

My mum seems to open every phone call to me by talking about someone who has died.

I pointed out to her that she does this, and maybe we could talk about nicer things.

On her last phone call to me, she said at the start "I know you told me that I talk about deaths a lot, but......I have to tell you, Jim down the Road, died".

Im starting to think that deaths to older people are what births and marriages are to people are age.

Older people seem to constantly talk about death.

There is a joke in Ireland that RIP.ie is the most popular website with older people

That instead of scrolling Facebook or Instagram, they constantly scroll RIP.ie

It's a website that updates with up to date deaths in the area in ireland

My DM does this. It drives me mad. She can see cars coming into her cul de sac using the reflection from the TV then leaps up to curtain twitch if she doesn't recognise the car. We can be mid conversation when she springs up to be nosey. She also reads all the death notices in the local paper and tells me about people I don't know who have died. I don't know why I bother visiting her sometimes.

Yes. Especially the ‘suspicious’ looking car parked outside in their usual spot.

My mum likes to tell me stories about random people she’s met on her dog walk including every detail about the dogs.
She absolutely loves dogs - I like them too but I’m not really interested in Shirley’s greyhound and what it’s favourite treat is🤣
I listen intently though, it makes her happy.